This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three brilliant researchers who worked out some of the secrets of black holes. Today we’re going to talk about the chain of discoveries that led to this award.
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Don’t ever accuse us of not comprehensively covering every kind of exploding star. This week we gather up all the leftover ways that stars partially or fully explode, or don’t. Probably. Enjoy.
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You’d think that a white dwarf star is the end of a stellar life. It’s all downhill from there. A long, slow cool down towards the end of everything. But in some situations, even dead stars can get exciting again, briefly becoming some of the brightest objects in the Universe. And just maybe, the last exciting thing that ever happens in the Universe.
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I’ve got some bad news for you: stars die. At some point in the next few billion years or so, our Sun is going to start heating up, using up all the fuel in its core, and then eventually die, becoming a white dwarf. It will then slowly cool down to the background temperature of the universe, becoming a black dwarf.
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You might be surprised to hear that we’ve never done an episode of Astronomy Cast featuring Betelgeuse. Well, good news, this is that episode. Let’s talk about the star, why it might be dimming, and what could happen if it explodes as a supernova.
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